


Dawn at Just the Right Moment

by redyucca



Series: no, you move [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Feminism, Gen, sisters killing dad bonding moment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 15:19:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18625903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redyucca/pseuds/redyucca
Summary: The immediate aftermath of Gamora killing Thanos.Gamora has a dream about the future as a not-dead woman.





	Dawn at Just the Right Moment

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to "Clothes of Form" -- will need to read that to understand parts of this.

**THE SURRENDER**

Gamora’s vision was a blurry sort of purple. She saw only her father’s head, small and alone on a dirty field of wheat and blood. His body was crumpled up several feet to the right. She was as unblinking as him.

“Gamora.”

A piercing whistle shattered the stillness in Gamora’s mind—the sounds of the battlefield washed over her and she turned to see Nebula, her sister, standing below her with her arm outstretched. Gamora almost reached for her gun on instinct, but the moment her shoulder twitched into movement, she remembered the present. Hard.

“N—?” She mumbled, stumbling towards Nebula, dropping her sword on the ground.

Nebula caught her as she tripped and Gamora could only hear Nebula’s stifled sobs against her neck.

“I didn’t think—,” Nebula whispered. “I didn’t think we would get you back…I thought you were gone, for good…”

Gamora squeezed Nebula against her chest rather than trying to respond. The last thing she remembered was the long fall down. Being rescued by a man with wings. Now here she was, embracing her sister while—

“He’s dead,” someone said.

Gamora twisted, not letting go of Nebula, to see a woman who was engulfed in flames, her short blonde hair standing on end in the colorful fire, nudging Thanos’s head with her toe. She thought for a moment, than she called, “Okoye!”

Another woman ran up, covered in blood, exhausted, with a beautiful spear.

“You got another one of those?” the fire woman asked.

Okoye produced one from a pocket, un-collapsed. The fire woman grabbed Thanos by the helmet and hoisted his head up in front of her. Than she plunged the fleshy neck onto the spear.

“Who wants to do the honors?” she asked, holding out the head to the two sisters who were watching in both awe and horror.

Gamora looked to Nebula and saw something in her face she would never have imagined witnessing. Cold hatred—nothing passive aggressive, nothing jealous, nothing heated or inspired or frustrated, nothing Gamora had herself been on the other side of all their lives. No, Nebula, it seems, had learned how to be cold.

“I will,” Nebula said, her voice clear and unwavering.

Fire-woman held out the head and then her hand. Nebula took it and then they were in the air.

Gamora could hear her sister, a vouce of doom, crying out, “Thanos the Disease is gone! His power is gone! Your leader is dead! Surrender or die like him!”

~

Thanos’s garden planet, pristine now except for one small corner, where the earth had been turned and dried and trampled and poisoned from war, was small in the distance. Rocket was happy to get them out of there as quickly as possible, in spite of his fondness for the Terran Avengers, so the Guardians were gone while the other’s stayed behind to clean up the destruction in Thanos’s and the Stones’ wake.

“Titan is how far away again?” Rocket asked Nebula as he cleaned his gun and wiped down his hands. Nebula was the only one of them not exhausted and not recently returned to the third-dimension, so she was captaining the ship with all the aplomb that can be expected of her.

“Far enough for us to sleep before we have to deal with those idiots,” she said, eyeing Gamora carefully. Gamora felt a rush of relief brush across her skin—everyone was still there, still the same.

“I am Groot.”

“Obviously we’re stopping for some burgers,” Rocket said. “Who do you think I am?”

“I am Groot.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Rocket replied, ducking his head. “Save it for my eulogy, alright? You sap—I miss the teenage attitude.”

~

The dreamscape was clearer than most. Gamora walked along rolling sand dunes, cresting like waves, but for all that the desert seemed empty and dark, there was a brightness just on the edges, and a smell that was rich with blooming things and fresh food.

She could hear a conversation, though no one was around to speak. The light affectionate tone who was asking the stark, grave one to open; the rhythm of patience and gratitude; the possibilities implied; Gamora knew who was speaking and she was happy.

 

What do you want now? Where do you want to go?

Home, I think.

Where’s that?

On a mission, with you, with the others. Together.

Yeah?

Yes. I want to prove him wrong.

Ok, prove him wrong how?

He killed me because I did not factor into his ideal universe. The only use I was to him was being dead. But I am not dead anymore. And I belong here, with you, with Groot, with Rocket and Mantis and Drax and my sister. Alive. The universe will be better because I am in it.

 

The sand spilled back from where Gamora stood and a river made its way under her feet. She waded in the deluge of cold and crystal clear water, sparkling in the sunlight, carrying the bright pink petals of the trees up-stream. Gamora smiled and felt loved.

~


End file.
